The Prestidigitation Connivance
by WeBuiltThePyramids
Summary: Set during the eighteenth episode of season four.  Howard visits Penny with the plan to fool Sheldon.


**So I am not even going to **_**explain**_** how I so suddenly snapped out of my writer's block because it's messed up. But I was watching 4.18 today and I just had to write this. Just had to.**

**DISCLAIMER: I don't own anything. As usual. I never own anything. Can I just have one universal disclaimer?**

Penny opened her apartment door to an unfamiliar knock. "Hey Howard, what's up?"

"Do you want to help us pull off the greatest prank since the spaghetti trees April Fools' Day prank of nineteen fifty seven?"

Penny cocked her head. "What?"

"May I come in?"

"You're not asking for relationship advice again, are you?"

Howard rolled his eyes. "What can relationship advice have to do with the greatest prank since the spaghetti trees April Fools' Day prank of nineteen fifty seven?"

"I can't think of anything," Penny admitted, "but it is you."

Howard thought about that for a moment, then shrugged. "Fair enough. May I come in?"

Penny smiled. She was in a strangely good mood today, possibly the eye of the storm, but what the hell, she hadn't cried in four days and with Bernadette visiting her grandmother and Amy busy at work it'd be nice to have some company before she went across the hall for dinner later that night. "Yeah, sure," she said, standing aside.

"Okay," Howard said, stepping inside. "Close your door, and let's go to your room."

The door, which had been half shut, was once again totally open. "Get out."

"No," Howard said, waving his hand. "That's not what I mean, just…how about the kitchen, okay?"

"Okay," Penny said hesitantly, shutting the door again. "But I have to warn you, I'm a bit scared now." She smirked as Howard, understanding that she was kidding, gave a playful roll of the eyes once again. "What's this great ruse?"

"Okay," Howard said, lowering his voice and putting a deck of cards on the table, "what does Sheldon hate more than anything in the world?"

Penny thought for a moment. "People sitting in his spot."

Howard tilted his head one way, and then the other. "Okay, aside from that."

"People touching his food."

"Keep going."

"People…people…" Penny made her hands into fists. "Oh, I'm gonna get this! People that…" She let her hands go limp and dropped down onto one of the barstools. "Howard, there's so many."

"Okay," Howard said. "What about people who he thinks of as intellectual inferiorities consistently doing something that he can't figure out?"

Penny's eyebrows went up. "What have you done?" She asked eagerly.

"Okay," Howard said. "Koothrapali and I have this deck, okay? And I'm having him take a card and not let anyone see it, and then he's putting it back and I'm giving him this long rambling thing about his birthday and how many cards to turn over, you know, blah blah blah, and then when he takes a card, he pretends, every time, that that was the card he chose."

"But it never is, right?" Penny asked, cocking her head.

"Actually, once it was," Howard said. "Complete coincidence, of course, and the look on his face would have given it away if Sheldon was pretty much anyone else."

"Classic," Penny said approvingly. "How long have you been fooling him?"

"Eh, about six hours," Howard said, grinning and rearranging the cards into a deck. "And it's driving him crazy already. If we can keep this up another few days, even, he's going to completely go into a breakdown."

"I'm not going to lie," Penny said, "normally your ideas creep me out but this? This is totally awesome." She shifted her weight to cross a leg over the other, holding her ankle up onto her other leg with her hand. "So are you going to do this again at dinner?"

"Sure am," Howard said. "I was wondering if you'd do the trick too, you know, pretending that the card was yours and all."

"Well absolutely!" Penny said, nodding. "It's always fun to see Wackadoodle freak out."

"It really is, isn't it?" Howard said, and waitress and engineer grinned at each other. "Now everyone is in on it but Leonard."

"Well, why isn't Leonard in on it?" Penny asked.

"He's out. Shopping with Priya."

"Oh." Penny nodded. "Eh, he won't give it away even if he catches on."

"Are you kidding?" Howard said. "He's not going to catch on. Priya got him these contacts, he can't get them in right and probably sees worse with them then without glasses."

"Really?" Penny said, making an _eek_ face. Howard mimicked it. "That's pretty much it."

"Hmmm." Penny tapped her fingers on the countertop, and then her face lit up. "Ooh! I have an idea!"

"What is it?"

"Okay," Penny said. "Sheldon respects my intelligence even less than yours, right?"

"Correct."

"And that's really saying something, correct?"

The reply from Howard was following a silence in which he worded and then chose not to use a defense against engineering. "Correct."

"So," Penny said, "what if, right when Sheldon's either dismissing the idea, or losing interest, or even getting really worked up, I say to you something like 'hey, I think I know how you did it'."

Howard's eyes lit up as he caught on. "And Sheldon will make some comment about how you possibly couldn't have figured it out if he couldn't…"

"…and then I'll whisper some random crap to you, and you'll tell me that I figured it out…"

"…and he will completely freak out!" Howard raised his hand for a high five.

Penny looked at it. "I'm not touching that." Howard offered his other hand, and Penny gave it an enthusiastic hit. "I think this is better than the spaghetti trees," Penny said.

Howard smirked. "So simple. Yet so delightfully fun."

Penny grinned. "I can't wait." She glanced up at her microwave clock. "He's gonna be home soon, you'd better get out of here so he doesn't suspect anything."

"Good plan." Howard rose and moved to the door. "See you later, partner."

Penny grinned as he loved, wondering if it was sad that she was looking forward to this so much. She decided that no, her, Raj, and Howard ganging up on Sheldon wasn't sad at all. Because something sad couldn't be this damn awesome.

**Hope you liked it! A review would be nice, as usual. :) And sorry it's so short! **


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